Landlords Look To Sell

Selling Points

The Hard Facts Of The Market Are Clear: For The Owners To Get The Most Out Of A Home, The Renters Will Have To Go.

October 22, 2000|By G.K. Sharman, Special to the sentinel

Lisa Cooper-Butler would like to fix up her Buenaventura Lakes home and show it to prospective buyers. There's only one hitch: Somebody else lives there.

Lisa and her husband, Kial Butler, used to live there. They bought the home in 1992 but moved to Ocoee in 1996. They've been renting it out ever since -- fortunately, Cooper-Butler said, to the same people who have been prompt with the check every month.

However, they declined a chance to buy the property two years ago, she said, when she and Kial started thinking about selling.

The cross-county commute necessary to manage the property is wearing thin, Cooper-Butler said. So she and her husband are looking either to quit being landlords or find investment property closer to home.

The BVL house has four bedrooms, two baths, a large kitchen, a two-car garage, a screened porch in back and impressive mature trees on the large corner lot. There's also a storage shed in back. It was built in 1982 and has about 1,390 square feet.

Emily Y. Morin, broker at Friendship Realty in St. Cloud, accompanied by agent Marjorie Eddy, took a look around the property for the Selling Points column and offered this succinct sales advice: First, ask the renters to move out.

The real estate pros found a fairly lengthy list of fix-ups that have to be done before the house can be put on the market. It would be a lot easier to do them in an empty house, Morin told Cooper-Butler.

A couple of other issues make showing rental property a challenge as well, Morin said. Though the homeowner controls the property, it's the renters' belongings that people gawk at and their privacy that is compromised.

Potential buyers also can react to the renters' habits -- accumulating clutter, for instance, which the owner can't control -- as much as to the home itself, she said. These habits might turn off shoppers or lead them to make a lower offer, she added.

The flip side is that renters can be unpredictable. Eddy described a situation she encountered recently: She had an appointment -- cleared with the renter -- to show a home. But when she and the potential buyer arrived, the renter said the time was inconvenient and refused to let them in.

So after the renters have moved on, Morin said, the couple can tackle the chores Morin and Eddy found for them. Though cosmetic, they're nonetheless crucial.

"The more she does," Morin said, "the more likely she'll be to get her price."

Here's a look at their suggestions:

The hall bathroom needs help in a big way. Cooper-Butler said she and Kial have already started doing some work in there -- which led, in part, to the broken toilet seat.

The room needs paint, Morin and Eddy said, new vinyl flooring and a new globe on the light bulb. As for the toilet, which is stained, as well as having a broken seat, it should be replaced, Morin said.

Give the house a good cleaning. Be sure to get the cobwebs that lurk at the top of the vaulted ceiling in the living room, Morin said.

Speaking of cleaning, Morin and Eddy said, the cluttered garage could use it too. On the plus side, though, the garage has an electric door opener.

The carpet in the living room, which the renters installed a few years ago, is still in good shape, the Morin and Eddy said. It, too, needs a good cleaning, however.

A couple of the bedrooms still have the old carpet. It should be replaced, the real estate pros said. The couple can either try to match the existing carpet or redo the carpet throughout the house.

Replace torn screens on the back porch. The neighborhood cats apparently tore them trying to get into the porch, Cooper-Butler explained.

Morin and Eddy also suggested paying attention to details, such as dusting the air vents, rehanging a pantry door and touching up paint on the walls.

The real estate pros gave thumbs-up to the big corner lot and the mature trees. The nearby yards are also nicely maintained.

"From outside, it looks very, very nice," Morin said of the neighborhood and the home's curb appeal.

Storage space in the kitchen -- it has two pantries -- and the big closet in one of the bedrooms also won praise.

One of Cooper-Butler's big concerns was the location. The home faces busy Central Florida Parkway.

Morin and Eddy didn't see it as an issue.

"This is an active resale area," Eddy told her. Buyers are drawn, in part, by the many schools nearby.

If people are worried about their kids' safety, she added, there's plenty of room to fence the back yard.

The couple probably can expect to get two kinds of potential buyers: people who want to live there and investors looking for rental property.

Buenaventura Lakes has a high percentage of renters. As many as one-third of the neighborhood's 10,000 homes are rentals, according to figures from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Morin said. The area also is zoned for short-term rental, which allows vacationers and snowbirds.

Morin and Eddy recommended pricing the home between $89,000 and $94,500, assuming the couple complete the fix-up list. As-is, they probably could expect offers in the mid-$70s.

Cooper-Butler liked the numbers; they paid $71,500 for the house in 1992.

Recent sales in the neighborhood include a four-bedroom, three-bath home for $91,500 and a trio of four-bedroom, two-bath homes ranging from $86,500 to $90,150.

Four-bedroom homes on the market in the neighborhood range from $80,000 for an as-is house owned by the Federal Housing Administration to $98,900 and $99,900 for slightly larger houses.